Meret Windler
Study: MSc Forest and Nature Conservation
Internship
Destination: Canada
Hi!
My name is Meret Windler. For my internship I will travel to Canada.
The upcoming months I will keep you updated about my experiences at this page. You can also follow me and other WURldexplores on Instagram (#WURldexplorers)!
See you!
Meret
Introduction
Hi everyone! I will explore the ´wurld´ for the coming six months and on this page you can follow me on my journey! I study the Master Forest and Nature Conservation and after having finished courses and thesis, I am looking forward to start my internship. I found a great opportunity in Canada, Thunder Bay, where I will be involved in all kinds of forestry activities.
Thunder Bay
After a week in Toronto I took the two hour flight to Thunder Bay! From the plane I could already see the beautiful lakes and the vast land. The city itself seems rather industrial and there is no actual city centre, but mainly malls. Luckily, I can live outside town in the staff house, which is located just beside my new work place and in the middle of a former tree nursery. The forest area around the house is huge and mainly used for tree spacing experiments.
Trainings
In Canada it is common that students take a job during summer break. At my internship placement for natural resources and forestry, there are around 20 other students that are starting their work here this summer. For my project with the ´forest growth and yield´ programme I form together with three other students the summer crew. We will go out into the field for measurements of different forest plots.
Field Trip
Our first field trip with the crew! We are basically part of a huge Canada wide forest inventory. Our crew is responsible for the North-West Region in Ontario and there is a grid of forest plots all over the country that need to be measured every 5 years. Granted, this is the theory and not the practice.
Holiday: Nova Scotia
After my field trip I had several days off, since we worked long days and through the weekend. I went to visit my boyfriend in Nova Scotia and as the name tells, it is the ´new Scotland´ and it really feels like it! There is Gaelic music playing, and for Canada day (1st of July) there was a parade of people playing bagpipes. Also there are a lot of breweries. People like their beer and probably Whiskey.
Orca Training
Another fun training! No more zigzagging for me across the rivers. We´ve learned how to canoe properly, how to steer, turn, dock and rescue. Sometimes, sites in the field can only be reached by water and then a canoe will be taken onto the floatplane, if possible. So therefore we all had to take the canoe (orca) training. Not much to say, other than that it was a great day on the water at the sleeping giant provincial park.
Sleeping giant
This week I had a visitor from Wageningen in Thunder Bay and we explored the area! There is the famous sleeping giant provincial park. It has this name, because the land mass that sticks into the Great Lake Superior has the shape of a sleeping giant on his back.
Kakabeka Falls
Very close to where I am staying, is a another provincial park: Kakabeka Falls. It is a very nice waterfall, with some trails along the river and the best ice-cream place right next to it.
Fishing
Thunder Bay has a lot to offer when it comes to outdoor activities! Fishing is definitely one of them. Ontario consists of around 45% water with mostly lakes, so fishing grounds are perfect. I have never been into fishing, but since everyone seems to do it here I also gave it a try. Together with my housemates we went out some times on one of the lakes and fished ourselves a nice dinner!